How wonderful it would be
to be a cat

just lay in the sun
on your comfy pedestal
looking down at your caretakers
not having to worry

about college

relationships

money

cars

christmas

birthdays

world hunger

war

government policies

healthcare

jobs

sounds like perfection


unless you're a stray
*that **** would ****

A Story From Nam

We were seventeen or eighteen in Nam
we became friends forever.
No more than friends.
Soldiers get closer than wives.
We went to sleep saying
I love you man.
We switched letters
For our girlfriends.
In case… well just in case.

The bullets rained
in the clearing that night.
I can still see the tracer lights.
Guys fell down all around me.
Crying everywhere.
Air power cleared them away.

I looked for Joe he was lay there.
I held him close
like a baby as he left us.
His last words
I love you man.
I whispered to him
Not as much
as I love you Man
.
I did not notice I had been hit.
After six months I returned home.
In West Virginia his beautiful girl
Opened the door of a small trailer.
She had a baby boy in her arms.
Her blue eyes welled with tears.
I passed the unopened letter to her.
I lied and said the blood
on it was mine.

She passed the baby
to me to hold
As she read the letter.
I kissed his tiny forehead.
And said see buddy
You’re not dead at all
I love you Man.

The ****** fuzz of adulthood
on the horizon
appears nearer than ever.

Crossing into frosty territory,
the frigid space between young
and not so young.

Six thousand five hundred
seventy four days
to get used to this voice.

To become familiar with these bones,
the way they crunch,
toes bent like ancient forks.

Days will be bloated with things
we never thought
we’d have to think about.

The ECG lines of our lives
flapping up and down,
a white wild skipping-rope.

They say it’s down to us now.
It’s our generation who will destroy,
then make flowers from the rubble.